Canisters are well-known means of containing and dispensing a wide variety of beverages, liquids and granular products. An aluminum canister (often referred to as a can) is typically formed by stamping, drawing, pressing, ironing, or extruding a single continuous piece of metal into a single-walled body with an open end, as typified by Klocke in U.S. Pat. No. 2,289,199; then filled with product; and then sealed at the open end along the edges of the single-walled body with a second part attached to those edges using a seaming process as exemplified by Cospen et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 3,843,014. Once sealed, the canister end comprised primarily of the second part is called the sealed end.
For a person to access the contents of such a canister, there must be an aperture through which the contents may be dispensed. Such an aperture may be created with a secondary tool such as a can opener or the canister itself may contain means for a person to create or access an aperture without a secondary tool. For example, the canister may include a removable seal feature on or within the sealed end by which a person may access a preformed aperture on the sealed end such as described by Smith in U.S. Pat. No. 2,034,007, Mansho in U.S. Pat. No. 2,974,824, Reynolds et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 3,312,368, Reynolds and Davidson in U.S. Pat. No. 3,338,462, Kerwin and Erlandson in U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,033, and Manne et al. in US 2011/0011868; or the canister may have a feature with which a person creates a predefined aperture with a feature such as the well-known pull-tabs with scored tear strips exemplified by Kaminsky and Muldowney in U.S. Pat. No. 4,530,631 and Neiner in U.S. Pat. No. 6,234,336.
In the known art, when the canister design includes such features for a person to create or access a preformed or predefined aperture without a secondary tool, the resulting aperture is contained within or is directly adjacent to the sealed end.
Metal canisters are designed for maximum structural integrity; with the aforementioned seaming process, the result is a sealed end with complex contours and sharp angles of grooves, ridges and seams. These attributes are the cause of sub-optimal user experience. For example, people often consume contents directly from canisters, placing their lips on and around the dispensing apertures on sealed ends and therefore on complex contours and sharp angles which can cause mouth discomfort and liquid spills. As another example, the seamed edges can cause turbulence when pouring contents into other vessels, resulting in spills. Finally, the grooves, seams, and ridges on typical sealed ends may be unsanitary dirt-catching areas. This problem is well described by Chapin in U.S. Pat. No. 8,534,490.
Prior solutions to these problems are sub-optimal because they may require additional parts, or they may require lengthy manufacturing processes, or they may compromise advantages of the cylindrical canister form, such as fill-rate and the ability to stack many containers (“stackability”). One example of a secondary device to improve flow from a canister can be found in Koehler U.S. Pat. No. 3,258,168. Chapin suggests an add-on device to eliminate or reduce the impact of some grooves and edges in sealed can ends in U.S. Pat. No. 8,534,490. Both of these require the expense of add-on parts or devices. The drawn conical “Crowntainer” described in Calleson & Calleson's U.S. Pat. No. 2,384,810 provides a better drinking and pouring interface and could in theory maintain fill throughput rates but at the cost of stackability and pack-out efficiencies (the amount of content which can be contained within the number of containers which can be stacked within a given cubic unit.)
Accordingly, there remains a need for a simple affordable canister for dispensing liquids which does not contain grooves on or around the aperture, which collect dirt and debris and form an uncomfortable surface, for dispensing the contents of the canister. Further, there remains a need for a canister which allows for canisters to be easily stackable without grooves around the dispensing aperture. Additionally, there remains a need for a canister which does not require a secondary tool to access the contents of the canister. The subject invention overcomes the limitations of the prior art.